NJPW New Year's Dash 2019

This in a nice match up, biggest guys in the company vs the somewhat smallest trio. Not just because of the traditional SZKG jumping of the bell, but because of the mentioned size difference, KES and Iizuka had control for a while, mostly working over Rocky Romero.

SHO and YOH got the tag from Romero, and even as a team had some trouble getting offense on one Davey Boy Smith jr, so by the time that Archer and Iizuka returned to the ring, they easily took control. Finish saw KES make the mistake to tag in Iizuka against all 3 R3Ks, and as he got distracted biting them all, YOH rolled them up for the upset win. Fun clash of strengths match, and a big win for R3K.

These guys are still using their Bullet Club logos, so they either turn heel tonight, or they really need to make the expense for new ring gear.

Honma and Chase started the match, Honma's hair is brighter than Chase's skin, but Honma's tan is darker than Chase's hair. Interesting contrast. Not much to the match, Yujiro and Chase worked over Henare for a while, Chase made a especial effort to antagonize Honma, and eventually, Honma came in with the hot tag and hit Kokeshis. Finish saw Chase pick up the win with a Package Piledriver on Henare.

Best Friends vs Juice Robinson & David Finlay - 7/10

Chris Roberts, who refereed last night's British Undisputed title match is working this match. I wonder if he'll start making some trips to Japan and move away from those horrible PROGRESS fans that just shit on him.

Match saw Best Friends work over Finlay for a while until Juice got teh tag and we got a long one-on-one between him and Berreta. When Finlay came back in, Chuckie T cost them the match with his dumb chair craze he gets. Chukie T and Berreta had some problems when the latter went to hug his mom up in the crowd. It's likely that we're getting Juice vs Berreta as the new direction for the US title.

Post-match - Chuckie kept attacking Finlay until Juice made the save, but when Juice and Berreta argued, Chuckie T nailed him too with a chair. At the end, he got a quick piledriver on Finlay over a chair.

Great match, we got some great match ups going with any given pair that got in the ring. A lot of the first half of the match was CHAOS working on KUSHIDA, so we got some great stuff with him. Nagata came in with the tag and we got a great exchange against Ishii. Finally, we got to see more Cobb vs Goto. We got an AWESOME Ospreay vs KUSHIDA run, that ended with Ospreay pinning KUSHIDA with the Storm Breaker. Awesome match.

My biggest takeaway is that I really hope we get Ospreay vs Cobb soon, and KUSHIDA vs Ishii before KUSHIDA goes and becomes a 205Geek.

Post-match - Ishii and Nagata traded some slaps. and go into a small pull apart.

First half of the match was BC working over Yano until Tama Tonga fell for some of Yano's tactics and Taguchi got the hot tag. Taguchi and Ishimori had a good exchange.

Makabe came in and fought GoD. Jado tried to interfere, but Yano low blowed him. Makabe went of the KKKD, but Chase and Yujiro finally joined the stable where they belong and hit a Package Piledriver on Makabe, giving the Bullet Club the win. Bit of a boring match, I saw it more as a means to formalize Yujiro and Chase's position in the BC. Tama Tonga is still doing his "I'm a good guy" thing.

I can see Taguchi vs Ishimori being a thing after this match. Would be a good first defense for him.

I wouldn't say that SZKG jumped LIJ, since they were all facing each other, but Taichi did manage to land a big chair shot on Naito right before the bell.

This match was all over the place, there was always someone inside the ring, but the rest would brawl outside. We saw Taichi work over Naito for way too long outside the ring, so I really really hope that is not Naito's first feud. We saw EVIL and SANADA pair up with Suzuki and Sabre, SANADA and Suzuki had a small exchange in the ring, as well as EVIL and Sabre, that could be a tag title direction i'd be interested in, and lastly, the juniors continued their feud.

At the end, Naito and Taichi had their thing in the ring. Taichi hit Naito with the belt before dropping him with an Air Raid Crush and getting the pin in the middle of the ring.

Post-match - SZKG went back on the attack and killed everyone in LIJ. The direction of these three championships is really clear now. Taichi cut a promo on Naito making his intentions clear.

I really don't know why everyone is popping for YOSHI-HASHI. He cut his hair tho, big improvement. Also worth mentioning, last night Jay White made his challenge to Tanahashi for the title during Tanahashi's press conference, so it's the direction is already set.

Match saw BC cut the ring in half on YOSHI (as expected) for a while, until Okada came in, he fought Gedo and Fale, until he became the babyface in peril. Tanahashi came in and fought White. At the end, it was YOSHI and White going at it, and YOSHI had some nice hope spots, but and the end, he fell clean to White's Blade Runner. He should have turned on CHAOS and joined White a long time ago. Good match.

Post-match - White cuts a promo saying he wants Tanahashi's title and that Old Man Tana can't beat him. Tanahashi goes to confront him, but he is attacked by Fale and Gedo. They gang up on him and Okada makes the save, only to fall to Fale's Grenade too. White hits a Blade Runner on Tanahashi and says that we're looking at the next IWGP Heavyweight Champion.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

New Year's Dash tends to be the show with surprises and returns and debuts, and we really had none, so I can see people shitting on this, but overall, it was a good easy to watch show that set up most feuds going forward.